


The Palace Guard

by Zarathastra



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: D/s relationship. Partially aware figment., M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 18:49:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4887958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zarathastra/pseuds/Zarathastra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s reality and there’s unreality, and sometimes these two things get inextricably tangled with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Palace Guard

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note: Thank you to everyone who has checked out my stories and left kudos or comments. It’s very much appreciated and a great relief to know that some people have enjoyed what I’ve written.
> 
> In my little Sherlock universe there was never a Baby Watson. I don’t think I could deal with that.
> 
> As before please read the warnings before proceeding. If anyone thinks they may be offended by what the warnings indicate maybe you’d be more comfortable passing this story over and finding something more to your liking. It’s labelled ‘explicit’ for a reason. Self-edited, so I’m sorry if I’ve missed any stupid mistakes. If there’s anyone still here, I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Update: I knew I'd find mistakes. I think I got them all this time.

_221b:_

John came home from the surgery, boneless with fatigue.  He dropped his briefcase on the floor and his coat on the arm of his chair and leaned forwards to take off his shoes.  A few minutes later he gave that up as a lost cause and leaned back into the cushion, closing his eyes and preparing for a quiet nap.  No such luck.

“Ah, John, there you are.”

“Here I am.”  He couldn’t drum up any enthusiasm for a more detailed response.

“I trust you had a good day?  Was the…” Sherlock tried to dredge the correct word up from somewhere “…doctoring…satisfactory?  Did anyone die?”

John sighed, thinking that Sherlock didn’t need to sound quite so eager about the thought of someone dying.  It appeared that for Sherlock people only had value if they were already beyond help.  But he conceded that he was being a bit severe.  Sherlock was just doing his best, making the effort to be ‘normal’ again, sincerely but clumsily asking after his shift at the surgery.  It wasn’t really Sherlock’s fault that he was spectacularly bad at it.

John was trying to be ‘normal’ too.  He’d resumed his medical practice, trying to be more like the man he used to be before Sherlock cut him out of his life and left him behind, and since his friend – no matter what Sherlock might have thought since John’s marriage, to John he would always be that - came back he’d thrown himself whole-heartedly into achieving that goal, hence the exhaustion.

Unfortunately it was the wrong day for Sherlock to suddenly make a stab at empathy.  The summer was giving every sign of turning into autumn, so cold and flu season was almost upon them and John had the feeling that today he’d been dealing with just the thin end of the wedge.  He hoped that he wasn’t going to be asked to go chasing around London just now because sheer fatigue meant that he wouldn’t have been able to manage it.  Still, he had to admit that Sherlock was making the effort.  He roused himself briefly, enough to manage a couple of short sentences.

“Yes,” he slurred, “far as it went.  No-one died.  Is there tea, Sherlock, I could really…”

And between one word and the next he fell asleep.

Well, this was inconvenient, Sherlock thought, watching John’s head loll against the back of his chair and the light snuffling snore begin.  He’d been anticipating John’s return tonight, hoping for both his assistance and his breathless admiration.  Perhaps it was time for John to stop trying to hold down two jobs.  It was all down to John’s ridiculous desire to pay his way, as if Sherlock couldn’t afford to rent the flat by himself.  It had to stop.  John could be a doctor or he could be a detective’s assistant.  And the profession that would have to go was, of course, John’s medical career.  He didn’t give a thought to what John might have said about that.  It didn’t really matter.

For now, he let things be and covered John’s sleeping form with the coat John had just taken off, before crossing the short distance to his own chair.  There would be a way to solve this without John; he only had to find it.  He leaned his back against the black leather and laced his fingers as he prepared to leave the room for the relative quiet of his Mind Palace.  The answer had to be tucked away there somewhere.

~~~

_Mind_ _Palace_ _:_

Inside Sherlock’s Mind Palace things were almost perfect.  He spent a lot of time there because it was more relaxing not having to try so hard to conform.  It was a warm summer day, a slight improvement on the weather outside it, in what people laughingly called “The Real World”.  The sun’s pale light streamed into the hallway through the whitish curtains at the large windows and right into his eyes, so Sherlock went into the living room and shut the door on it.  He immediately felt less tense; the world outside his own mind was too chaotic, too random.  He didn’t need to have the same thing going on _inside_ his mind as was going on outside it. That was totally redundant.  He wanted stability in this moment, the peace to think rationally without the many distractions out there in the Outer London that he had little control over.  He would give some thought to the situation first, and then go in search of John.  He didn’t question whether John would actually be here.  Of course he would be.

He spent some time thinking about the case, to no good effect.  It wasn’t helping much, being in here.  All the same the last thing he was going to do was to give in and confess to Lestrade that this was one of the ones he couldn’t solve; it was a matter of pride.  So he would either have to buckle down, eliminate the random thoughts cluttering up the space in his mind and solve it or find some convincing lie to explain away the fact that he couldn’t.

~~~

John had a special place all of his own in Sherlock’s Mind Palace, a room that was far bigger and a lot nicer than his actual bedroom in the flat.  Sherlock had made it cosy and comfortable enough to serve as a haven for a man who worked hard at a difficult job all day and sometimes needed to escape from his overpowering flat-mate, also of course to encourage him to stay.  In this room John’s bed had a comfortable mattress and a warm, snuggly duvet.  There was enough space for his clothing in the wardrobe and chest of drawers, although they were currently empty as they sometimes were, and there was a deep, comfortable chair to sit in.

But, as it turned out, ‘Mind Palace John’ was spending very little time in that comfortable room.  He was more often than not to be found waiting, sitting naked and cross-legged on the double bed in Sherlock’s room.  The room was exactly the same as the bedroom Sherlock occupied in the 221b outside his Mind Palace, so conveniently John was always there for Sherlock to find and he was mostly to be found there stark naked, waiting.

Sherlock paused in the midst of trying once again to consider the case as, without his say-so, the thought of John intruded into what should have been a purely professional search for answers here in this carefully constructed place.  John wouldn’t be occupied by anything more interesting than just sitting there in Sherlock’s room on the bed, as usual and the beauty of it was that he wouldn’t even mind.

Or sometimes he would, boringly enough, be in his own chair by the fire in the sitting room reading something either prosaically medical or utterly trivial involving spies with guns, while looking very appealing – pretty much the same as he was usually to be found doing out there in what Sherlock sometimes called “Outer London.”  Sherlock neglected to acknowledge that it was he himself who’d imagined John that way, giving himself what he considered to be a little innocent amusement by postulating what he would do when he got back to the flat.

But he hadn’t come here for that.  He put the thought of John to one side and returned to going over the minutiae of the case with the addition of the few small theories he’d been able to come up with while he’d been roaming around the streets of Inner London, which were thankfully a lot quieter than those in Outer London. 

Even so he kept stumbling over unforeseen obstacles – a clever murderer who’d left no trace of him or herself behind, a victim who was seemingly so mind-numbingly tedious that he hadn’t done anything to bring such a fate upon himself - and found himself unable to resolve them to his satisfaction.  So, frustratingly, he had no choice but to go back to the beginning.  He spared John a brief thought; the doctor would be asleep in the sitting room, or sitting in the bedroom, and how redundant was that?  Sherlock briefly considered leaving his meandering thoughts to one side and returning to the sitting room out in the real world, waking John to eat something as a spiteful act of revenge for all the times John had done it to him but even as the thought crossed his mind a little detail from this morning intruded and he forgot all about being John’s keeper and tried again to picture the scene of the murder, looking for the unusual, searching for the story it would tell him.

He entered the sitting room in his Mind Palace and, seeing John waiting like that all naked and tempting, he smiled.  Here was one sure-fire way of relaxing his mind and distracting his attention.  He gave John a quiet yet compelling order and watched in fascination as John moved swiftly to the floor, folded down onto his knees and bent his head. 

Sherlock savoured the sight and took his opportunity, determined to find a way to clear his mind, and what better way than this?  He would have John there on the floor in front of the chair with the warm glow of the fire painting his skin in moving patterns of red and gold, dropping the occasional kiss on his warm neck. 

But why place limits on himself?  He wasn’t in his Mind Palace for nothing.  The scene didn’t have to mirror the real world so completely.  It could occasionally shift to another location to match Sherlock’s restless mood, placing John lying face-up in Sherlock’s bed for instance, looking up at him with his legs spread fetchingly, hands reaching for him, clenching and unclenching in an effort to ground himself.  That was the chief beauty of having a Mind Palace, Sherlock thought, the endless possibilities. 

Given that particular truth, Sherlock suddenly shifted the picture mid-scene from one appealing scenario to this new one he’d come up with, commanding John onto his back right from the start, making him raise his legs and spread himself in readiness.  Familiarity, he was discovering, in no way bred contempt.

‘ _Tell the whole truth, Sherlock_ ,’ said the John voice in his head.

_'Very well’_ , he corrected himself, viewing the facts in a different way.  This kind of scene would never have occurred before.  There had been barriers before, even though the thought that he could break through them was always tantalisingly there in the back of his mind.  It hadn’t mattered to him how long it took, the challenge was enough in itself.

But John had been damaged by his desertion and lack of trust and showed himself to be in need of Sherlock’s undivided attention, desperate to offer him the whole world, most especially his own body, if Sherlock would only stay.  John had left himself exposed, his unguarded secret finally made known.  It may not have been completely healthy, Sherlock thought, but this was where he came in.  It was his responsibility to help John recover, show that he was in fact worthy of this singular devotion.

In this new arrangement that they had it was his place to offer healing and support.  He needed to learn more about how to take care of John without the other man knowing because John wouldn’t do it for himself and as he healed and came back to himself, wouldn’t take it from Sherlock either.  Sometimes John was still letting Sherlock do anything he wanted to but these days that was happening less and less as John began to take on board the idea that he wasn’t going to be deserted again.  He was less likely to say nothing when he didn’t like what Sherlock was doing or saying.  It was good to see his John coming back to himself.  It excited him to think that it was only a few steps into the future now.

John was once again becoming pretty vocal.  In his gratitude he’d been willing to let Sherlock do whatever he wanted.  But now, as their relationship shifted again into this fresh configuration, even given John’s altered position Sherlock was finding that he still didn’t have it all his own way.  He wanted to ask what it would take to have the real John Watson back in his life but somehow he understood the mistake that would have been.

~~~

John came to and didn’t know where he was.  A minute ago, he was certain he’d been asleep in his chair downstairs - hadn’t he?  But now here he was, still lying in bed, sun streaming through the window, curtains open.  It felt late.  He sat up and looked around the room.  No sign of Sherlock.  For a moment anxiety bloomed in his chest.  He didn’t like not knowing where Sherlock was.

He made to get out of bed and search for his flat-mate but was startled to find that he was naked.  He frowned; he didn’t sleep naked, at least not when he was alone, which to be fair wasn’t very often.  You just never knew when disaster would strike and you’d have to go outside in your pyjamas and if you had to look for them first there was no telling what would happen.

Disquieted, he searched in the dresser drawer for his gun and gripped it tightly as he abandoned the idea of dressing.  There may well be no time for that.  He had to find Sherlock.  Besides, who was going to see him?  There was no-one here but the two of them.  Mrs Hudson, thank goodness, kept herself to herself now that she’d learned the way of things.  She had, after all, been married at one time.

His uneasy feeling growing by the second, he moved smoothly around the room, peeping under the bed, flinging the wardrobe doors open in that dramatic, James Bond way he had, even pausing to open the rest of the drawers in the dresser and rifle through Sherlock’s underwear.  John knew that Sherlock had been in the room at some point recently; Sherlock had unhurriedly fucked him here to his great fulfilment just the other night.  The memory of it still made him shiver and brought a bright flush of pleasure to his face. 

But right now there were none of the signs he was looking for, so he scribbled a brief note in case Sherlock returned and found him gone, even though Sherlock had never done such a thing before.  He gripped his gun a little tighter, eased the bedroom door open and stepped outside to widen his search.  He moved silently, eyes darting to and fro looking for sign like the trained marksman he was.

John was vaguely aware that he shouldn’t be doing this.  It wasn’t really his place.  He was just here to be Sherlock’s protector and an additional point of view, and latterly his recreation.  Not that Sherlock had ever graced him with that knowledge but all the same he was remembering things that he was sure Sherlock had never told him.  He didn’t question how he knew these things, he just accepted it. 

For instance, he knew that Jim Moriarty was in there somewhere, and with a stab of hatred John knew that if he ever came across him he would shoot on sight and Moriarty would be twice-dead.

And The Woman was in here somewhere, too, although John had never seen her, either.  Sherlock must have done something to hide the knowledge of her somewhere.  It was a pretty safe bet that wherever she was, she’d be naked, too.  So Sherlock must have imagined her that way, using their initial encounter as a template, envisioning her as his stab at a life of heterosexual wish fulfilment and from the way his chest ached at the very idea John thought that if he ever saw that he might just shoot her, too.

Shrugging off the thought of the two people he hated perhaps most in the world and not letting himself wonder why, he carried on walking slowly down the corridor, clothed only in his determination to keep Sherlock safe.  He had no way of knowing that he was the John who still lodged in Sherlock’s memory, the soldier that Sherlock thought he was forgetting how to be. 

He acknowledged that slowly over an indeterminate period of time he had let go of his fears of being left behind, or that Sherlock would just leave without him and the heart in him had quieted.  He should have known that Sherlock, in his own twisted fashion, had made it better. 

He wandered around Sherlock’s Mind Palace, through rooms he’d never even imagined might be there.  What was this one, a music room, a whole room just for a violin?  He took a peep inside, recognising the layout of the room from some album cover from years ago.  But there wasn’t just a violin.  A small piano was standing by the window and there on the lid someone had laid a clarinet in an open case. 

He hadn’t played the clarinet in years but somehow, although he’d mentioned it to no-one but Sarah Sawyer as they flirted their way through his job interview, Sherlock knew about it and there it was should John ever experience the need to play it.  He recognised it for what it was, a demonstration of devotion that Sherlock would never have voiced aloud.  His heart twisted in his chest at the sight of the photograph on the lid of the piano, his own face smiling quietly back at him, showing a man content to be exactly where he was, and he swallowed painfully with the startled recognition of the kind of quiet devotion that photo demonstrated.  He closed the door softly and made note of his progress, making sure he could find his way back there should he ever need to. 

~~~

Sherlock grew increasingly impatient as he went in search of John.  Somehow he kept missing him.  He had the feeling that as he opened one door into a room John had just closed another door at the other end.

He fetched up back in his own room, hoping that John had doubled back on himself, but the room was empty. 

But he wasn’t Sherlock Holmes for nothing.  He spotted the transparent clue John had left.  He might just as well have put a marker there:  _‘John was here’_.

Oh, but he had.  The crumpled scrap of paper on the dresser would have told him a lot, had John not had that terrible kind of doctor’s handwriting, which Sherlock struggled to read.  He had no idea from the note where John might be or what he might be doing.  He frowned at the man’s absence; he was supposed to be here.  This was exasperating.

Sherlock knew the old saying that if you went in search of something it would be found in the last place you looked, something trite that Mycroft had trotted out, no doubt just to annoy him.  He had left his own room until last and was anticipating finding what he was looking for.  Or he would have, if John had still been where he’d been placed. 

John’s gun was missing.  So he had it with him, although where he would hide it, being naked all the time, Sherlock wasn’t sure.  He’d long ago made sure there was nothing in the way of clothing in this whole place that would comfortably fit John.  It was a consolation, though, to know that John had a gun, that he would be protected from some of the things and most of the people that Sherlock had unwisely allowed into his Mind Palace.

So this was what recovery meant.  This John here in his Mind Palace was the one who queried what Sherlock said and did, who angrily challenged him and swore at him.  He was the John whom he’d been before Sherlock’s fall, the John who Sherlock thought he’d always wanted, the strong one to run beside him and fight against him all in the same instant.

But he loved the needy John of his absence, too, regretted leaving him behind and wanted to take away the damage he’d caused, because it was still there buried deeply underneath the bravado.

He loved that strong, capable man and had missed him.  But the new John, the needy one, desired him in ways that the stronger John from the past would never admit to.  And he found he liked it.  So he was startled to realise that he wanted to carry on being John’s Dominant.  If he could make a man like John kneel for him, reach for him so eagerly and follow his instruction, he must have been doing something right.  For a split-second he was proud of himself.

But he should have been able to deduce why John stayed with him even under their current circumstances, he thought angrily.  His powers of deduction, as usual, had been ineffective when it came to this man.  In that respect he reminded Sherlock of The Woman.

He suddenly realised that he’d seen nothing of Irene Adler in here.  She simply wasn’t there, although he had the feeling she used to be.  He wasn’t to know why, but the truth of it was that the John here in his Mind Palace had managed to arrange for the talented singer and courtesan to embark on an extended opera tour.  A world tour during which she had met a charming and adventurous woman in Australia and wouldn’t be back.

Sherlock didn’t know about it, because John was very good at keeping that particular secret and that in turn was because there wasn’t a single aspect of Sherlock’s life that John didn’t want to be involved in.

John didn’t know how to build his own Mind Palace with its own Sherlock Holmes in it, and if he was being truthful he didn’t even want to.  He already knew the trappings that Sherlock had created, the violin and the shelves full of books and case notes, the beloved pet of his childhood years.  They were all things that Sherlock thought he needed.  Even the smiling, treasured photo of John himself on the closed lid of the piano representing Sherlock’s unseen love for him would never be enough.  John didn’t want to be dispossessed and bereft any longer.

~~~

There was a ‘real’ John out there and Sherlock hoped this figment John would never be aware enough to ask “Do you love him more than me?” because he knew now what his answer would be.  But that figment was only his own version of John, after all, the one he’d created to suit himself, to offer comfort to himself.  It had little to do with who John actually was.

Even as he thought it through the two sides of John slowly came together to form the whole.  Sherlock didn’t have to look for either one of them further than the man sleeping in the chair out there in the sitting room.  It was simple.  Not clever, maybe, but inevitable.  Perhaps it was time to return to John, whichever one was there to be found.

~~~

2 _21b:_

Closing the front door of his Mind Palace he came back to the sitting room to watch John sleeping, not entirely peacefully.  John muttered softly under his breath and twitched a little in his sleep.  Sherlock wanted to wake him with new knowledge to impart and just as he couldn’t bear it any longer John’s eyes opened mid-sigh and he was suddenly under scrutiny.

"Sherlock,” John smiled vaguely, scrubbing at his short hair.  “Did you work it out?”

This was perhaps the most significant moment in their entire relationship.  It was probably not what John might have been expecting, but Sherlock knew he had solved something right here that was far more important than any murder.  The man would still be dead tomorrow and tomorrow he would devote his entire being to doing what he could to make sure that the poor soul had the full measure of justice that he was due.

“Do you know why they never worked out?” Sherlock asked.  “All those women, all those years?”  He waited but there was no answer.  “It’s because they weren’t me.”

_‘Talk about a monster ego’_ , John thought.

“ Whatever substance souls are constructed of, John,” Sherlock went on, simply and honestly, “yours and mine are the same and quite familiar to one another.”

It certainly wasn’t what John had been expecting, but his throat closed suddenly and he found it hard to breathe.  He couldn’t speak, but then he didn’t need to.  Sherlock had said it all.

After that, it was easy to respond when Sherlock opened his arms to him in invitation.  He simply walked into them.

 ~~~

_Mind_ _Palace_ _: Two days later:_

John hadn’t bothered to try and find clothing.  He had the feeling that he wouldn’t come across anything in the Mind Palace that would fit him, and that Sherlock had done that deliberately.  It was okay; here in this place he was fine with that.  He turned to thank Sherlock for giving himself away without needing to spell it out any more clearly and embarrass them both.

That was when they came across someone else in the hallway for a deserted Mind Palace it was getting a bit crowded now - who smiled when she saw John.  For the first time, he blushed.  Of all the people he didn’t want to see, and the list was growing rapidly, there she was, large as life.

“I knew it,” Mary said, regarding John’s naked body with nostalgic interest, looking for differences, her gaze dwelling on all the aspects of his form, the ones she would undoubtedly miss in the years to come.  “He denied it, but I knew.  I didn’t want to know but it was so clear.  You didn’t want to admit it, did you darling?” she addressed John with a strained smile.  “But I knew when to give up.  It’s not about who makes you hard, it’s more about who makes you happy.  Does he make you happy?” she added curiously.   She found the answer in the fact that he didn’t turn to look at Sherlock but kept his gaze carefully focussed on her face.  Her smile turned rueful.  “Makes you hard too, I suppose.  You should have admitted that a long time ago and saved us all some misery.”

John didn’t know what to say.  He didn’t say that he’d thought he was doing the right thing by staying with her and any other answer he gave would sound stale, not to say brutal.  He couldn’t tell her, with Sherlock standing there beside him, that there was a part of him over the years to come that would always think of her and the life they had started to make together, and he would always wonder what it might have become.

“Oh, God…”  His voice cracked.  He couldn’t say it, not now, probably never.  All he could say was:  “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.  I think it’s best if we don’t speak again, John.  Don’t you?”  She swallowed tightly and her hands clenched, the wedding ring she still wore digging into her finger as her hand folded in on itself.  She’d wanted to say his name one last time to remember what it sounded like in her mouth but she hadn’t realised what it would cost her.

“Yes,” John whispered around the constriction in his throat.  “Goodbye.”

He didn’t even feel the broad hand that closed firmly around his, enveloping, supporting him, but Mary saw it.

“Well,” she said.  “Congratulations.  I hope you know what you have, Sherlock.”

“I do.”

“Remember that phrase,” she said, and smiled in spite of herself.  “Don’t break his heart,” she added sincerely.  “You know I’m a crack shot.  Well, I’d better get going.  Don’t look for me here again, I won’t be here.”

And she never was.

~~~

_221b:_

After Sherlock came back from wherever he’d gone to, after he was sure Mary was gone, there was a comforting embrace from one to the other, which was how it started.  John felt wrung out simply from watching her go and automatically reached his other hand for Sherlock.  He didn’t ask for what he wanted but both of them had known it would come to this.

This time there was just an visceral reaction, one twin soul reaching for its mate.

“Please,” John said hoarsely.  “Please, Sherlock, make it better.”

Sherlock understood, of course.  “But you’re the doctor, John,” he said kindly.  “Are you sure this will help?”

When he and John had begun this new way of life after his return from the dead, he had sworn never to abuse the trust that had been placed in him.  Never again.  No more lies or manipulation to get his own way.  He had to know that he was doing the right thing, granting comfort in what was clearly a bit of a crisis for John and providing a gentle reminder of what their relationship was now.  He was almost asking permission for it to continue.  “You know your true nature,” he said.  “All I’ve done is help you to realise it.”

“I need you,” John said.  “This time can you just let it be that and nothing more.  Okay?”

And that was enough for Sherlock.  As he advanced and John inevitably retreated he halted in his tracks to stop the tussle, led John by the hand through the expanse of his Mind Palace and into his bedroom, occasionally giving the hand in his a squeeze of support.  Once there, he encouraged John to lie down on his back and then made him watch as he slowly undressed.  John’s hungry gaze followed his every move until he knelt on the bed beside his doctor and leaned down to bestow one of those kisses he’d previously thought so unnecessary, just because John loved them so.

He took longer than he usually might have to map every muscle and nerve in John’s body.  It would be worth the time he took in the end.  John was already moving, stretching, trying to show his body in the best light, offering himself in joyful capitulation.

Sherlock decided to surprise him.  Instead of what John was clearly expecting, he simply laid himself gently down on top of the smaller body, fitted himself between John’s legs and with a little careful manoeuvring, somehow managed it so that their faces were in alignment.  He felt the benefit of it as his hard prick came into contact with John’s.  It helped that, as a man, he knew exactly what John was feeling in this moment, the pleasure that started and grew with every brush against the other man’s penis.  He listened to John’s incoherent moaning and it wasn’t hard to imagine that John was indeed surprised by the turn of events.

As the bliss finally closed his eyes, he sped up his movements until he emptied himself into the space between himself and the body he was worshipping and as John followed suit with a deep groan of happiness he found he didn’t even mind the viscous wetness that bathed them both, which only a short while ago he’d have felt the need to wash away as quickly as possible.

~~~

“You still have night terrors,” Sherlock said, hours later.  It wasn’t a question.  John nodded minutely; he hadn’t wanted to admit to that.  But it was for the best.  Better for Sherlock to find out now rather that in the middle of one of his nightmares.

“How did you know I still have those?” he asked a little nervously.  He’d tried not to mention anything about them for a long time now.

“Experience,” Sherlock said plainly.  “I thought I’d shattered you.”

John hadn’t realised that he knew about that.  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, his head dipped to stare at the duvet cover.  Who’d chosen one with ducks on it, anyway?  He could swear that one was looking right at him.

“I was awake anyway,” Sherlock told him evasively, purposely not willing to expand on his last remark.

“I could have hurt you, because of them,” John said in concern and frowned as he realised Sherlock was smiling now.

“No, I wouldn’t have let you.”

~~~

John didn’t know why he felt the compulsion to take care of Sherlock but after all his first instinct was always to follow and protect the man, so he shouldn’t really have felt so surprised.

He had somehow taken the conviction that Mycroft expected him to look after Sherlock into the Mind Palace with him.  Mycroft could have saved his breath, John thought.  He’d have done it anyway.  He thought of it as his chief purpose in life now.

Sherlock fully expected that they would still be shagging in his Mind Palace.  Well, that was okay, it was his Mind Palace, after all, his to do with what he would.  But it was more equal than that now.  Sherlock was still and probably always would be the one doing the shagging but John was both willing and happy to go along with whatever he wanted to do.  As long as Sherlock let him know beforehand, made him feel loved and wanted, and gave him the chance to decline.  But he’d never done that because it wasn’t about insecurity now.  It was about desire, and longing, and it was mutual, and that was what he’d always wanted.

~~~

_Mind_ _Palace_ _:_

John was hungry.   Hardly surprising, given what he’d been doing last night and what he’d had done to him.  He quietly left the room and headed for where he thought the kitchen was, bracing himself to ignore whatever catastrophe was waiting for him there.  But when he eventually found it, it was astonishingly clean and not at all toxic.  Not what he’d been expecting.  How -

Of course.  A kitchen in a Mind Palace didn’t need much cleaning.  He decided not to think about that and headed for the fridge to see what might be in there.

What he found was Mrs Hudson as she apparently materialised from out of nowhere, completely confused and carrying a plate of Garibaldi biscuits.  She didn’t seem to know where she was, Sherlock had evidently and ill-advisedly just cast a random thought her way one day as he worked through some puzzle or other and after that there she was.  He’d have to tell Sherlock that he couldn’t let that happen again.

“Oh, there you are, dear,” she said on seeing him.  “I’m a bit lost.  Can you help me out?  I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.  I thought you lived in the flat upstairs.  I was just going to leave these for you, but I can’t find your sitting-room.  Isn’t that strange? Has Sherlock been re-decorating?”

Strange?  It was bloody weird, John thought.  But just as he would do anyway, he guided her through the house and out into the garden, which was full of trees to give shade and fragrant flowers and hovering bees and was much nicer than the jungle at the back of 221b. 

What happened to Mrs Hudson after that he never found out.

~~~

_221b:_

John’s eyes closed in bliss.  Even though Sherlock had never said it in so many words he had never felt so loved, it was obvious in every move Sherlock made inside him and he laughed with the sheer joy of it as he was being taken.  He’d only had to think back a short while, to Sherlock right where he was now and it would all come flooding back, himself on the floor, practically begging for it and Sherlock ever so kindly obliging him.

Sherlock panted against John’s neck, feeling the last of the aftershocks, his brain fizzing with pleasure, completely wiping out everything he’d ever thought he knew.  How annoying.  Would he have to start rebuilding from the cellar up?  It was all John’s fault for responding to his advances.  But he’d been a bit hasty he discovered as the pleasure faded.  It was all still there, overlaid now with the memories of John’s surprising skills as a lover as he showed the detective things he’d never known before, even from his current position.

“Oh, John,” Sherlock smiled, proud of his lover.  It had been a pleasure to dominate such a man and he’d come to understand the enormity of it, the responsibility, it was an exhilarating thing to fight against John’s dual personality, the soldier and the doctor, and establish his natural dominance.  But all the same there was rebellion and there was taking liberties.  They were going to have a serious talk, and the sooner the better.

From the circle of his arms John suddenly asked:  “Do you remember what you were so obsessed about out there when you were dead?  What was it that was so important to keep you away so long?”

“I told you.”

“You told me the practical reason.  You didn’t say why.”

And he never would.  He’d wanted to keep John safe.  Not something to admit to when you were trying to dominate someone like John.  He didn’t think he could go through all that again, sustaining John through another bout of insecurity.  John was himself again now and he wanted to keep it that way.

“The world needed to be rid of those people,” he said.

“Sherlock, did you kill them?” John frowned.

He’d always been able to lie with a completely straight face.  “No, of course not.  But they’ll never be able to hurt anyone again.”

John was so easily fooled, Sherlock thought, he fell for it every time.  Sherlock framed his face with large, gentle hands.  “It doesn’t matter now,” he said, kissing John as sweetly as he knew how, knowing exactly why he felt such a compulsion to keep John in the dark as to what he was really capable of.  He didn’t want John to think that of him, what he wanted was a trust he didn’t really feel he deserved.

But maybe it would be alright, Sherlock thought.  This John was a tad more forgiving these days, a little more relaxed than he’d been before.

John smiled at him and settled contentedly on his chest, his arm going around Sherlock’s waist, hoping Sherlock would never find out what had happened to Irene Adler.

~~~

John had been having an epiphany of his own, trying to let go of all the hurt and feelings of loss, one by one.  He’d thought Ella was barmy for even suggesting it but he tried it, concentrated the way she’d suggested and bit by bit he felt the pain breaking off in chunks and floating away, just like Ella had said it would.

“Imagine it’s all been collected together on a raft in the ocean,” she’d said, “let it go, don’t scramble about trying to save anything on the raft, if it’s needed you’ll find it again, if it’s not it’ll just slip away.  Just lay down the load.  The sea’s wide and strong, John, it can take it.”

There went the sight of Sherlock lying there pale and at death’s door on their living room floor, gun-shot and leaving him again, though not this time by his own choice.  John wouldn’t let himself think about the cause of that, how he’d brought this menace into their lives without even knowing he had, how he’d fooled himself into thinking that he and Mary had been growing closer, that she had been healing him with love and tenderness, instead of what he now knew had really been going on.

And there at long last went that spectacular dive off the roof of Bart’s Hospital.  That was a huge one.  He’d give Sherlock 10 out of 10 for that one, it had everything, style, even a kind of mad grace, and it was, of course, a real showstopper.  Nothing could ever beat that for drama and perfect execution. 

Something in John cringed over the word, but it was true.  The memory of that had taken quite a lot of hot showers to dislodge as he stood under the scalding spray and let it burn his skin even as cold tears washed his face.  It had taken a long time but at last he’d been able to confront that memory and stare it down.  But there had been others over the years and would be many more and he’d try to do the same with them when the time came.  One thing at a time though.  One of the little things next, he thought, like that Wednesday he couldn’t even remember.  That one would be easy to discard.  No time like the present.

When it was done, when he’d torn at some of the layers of hurt and abandonment and let them go, what was left was new and slowly healing and he found he could live with the rest of them, at least for now.  There was Sherlock and there was John and the two of them had parted and come back together on the other side of it all.  What happened now between them could only be good, he thought, built as it was on this new foundation of devotion.

~~~

_Mind_ _Palace_ _:_

The pathway to Sherlock’s Mind Palace continued on around the building and led to the garden.  He hadn’t known there was a garden in his Mind Palace.  He’d never been out here before.  When had this happened? 

His visits here had always been confined to the Palace itself, where he was always searching for some kind of information with no time for such things as the superfluous peace of a garden.  This time if he went into the garden he knew he would find John sitting back in a comfortable lawn chair actually wearing clothes and with a straw hat on his head to shield his face from the bright sunlight he himself had brought with him, resting from the exertions of the day, or the night before, peacefully waiting there for him, relishing the chance to be out of the bedroom, ready and willing to give him whatever he wanted from tea all the way up to his entire existence.

Before he knew it Sherlock was out there in the open air.  A breeze rustled in the leaves on the trees, rippled the spray from the fountain until drops of it splashed his face, and the flag on the rooftop flag-pole fluttered.  The gentle wind played with the flowers he had never seen before, and the day grew that much brighter. 

That, Sherlock realised, was what John Watson had done, and it was more important than him just being there to listen in awe or give advice about injuries, or even offer his body.  John had opened the doors and flung open the windows and made room for song and healing for them both and in turn he had shown John how beautiful the starlight through the long windows at night could be.

Sherlock found he didn’t mind the invasion quite so much, so this time when he left his Mind Palace to go back to his John out there, he left the front door wide open to let in the sunlight.

End

 


End file.
